The latest addition to GSS Marine Services’ fleet – the Fiona F – went straight to work on a contract for the burgeoning wave and tidal industry.

The Fiona F, GSS’s brand new Eurocarrier, travelled from the Neptune Shipyard in Rotterdam to Orkney, where it was used to install gravity anchors for the wave and tidal technology testbeds operated by the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC).

EMEC operates test facilities off the coast of Orkney for new and developing technologies and devices for the wave and tidal power industry.

The contract required 10 anchors, weighing between 182 and 91 tonnes, to be installed, with five each at two sites in Shapinsay Sound (for tidal energy testing facilities) and Scapa Flow (for wave energy). The anchors, built up from concrete blocks inside a steel frame, were assembled underwater at piers three miles from their eventual installation site and then transported underwater to be lowered into position.

Both assembly and lowering procedures involved a team of divers working from the Fiona F and the Shapinsay Sound installation had the added ‘interest’ of a four-knot tidal current to contend with.

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